Try turning every checkbox off and every quality setting to its lowest. It'll look like crap but if all you care about is that it runs...

The good news is, if you can afford FFXIV you can afford a more recent videocard, don't have to go cutting edge. But then again the problem could be something else in your system (In my case it was dust caked into my heatsinks, and Spybot slowing down my system.)

low resolution and everything turned down, if you can bear average graphics yeah, also ingame config turn off some of the effects. play around until you have something thats a bit more to your liking, think i spent about 2 hours when i first got into ffxiv logging in and out messing with the config until i had something i was happy with, its not the best but its not bad either

Think for me it was the buffer size that was giving me the most problem, try flicking it to three quarters screen size and see if that helps

I have the same settings and XIV is VERY slow and choppy for me. I did buy a new 9800 GT card on ebay (New for less than $100, no one else bid on it).. hopefully this will help, I will update when I get it

Well the only option left is to overclock the 8500 but at most you will pick up a incrementally small boost in performance (5% perhaps) but at the same time you void the warranty on the 8500 and risk it in the process.

Basically

You need a new video card. The 8500 GT isn't listed anywhere on the recommended or minimum specs. In my study of the game it's apparent that it is GPU hungry. SE has stated they intend the game to last 5 to 10 years ... meaning which they are building the game around what *they think* will be normal day specifications of the year 2015. Kind of like looking into a crystal ball and trying to determine what the future will look like.

I hate to say it but the processor is barely making the minimum spec as well. I play on a Q6600 with G0 stepping overclocked to 2.8 Ghz and it does ok at 1280x1024 ... with everything turned off. That's a nice way of saying we are both barely in the race, as in we are taking a bus on the drag race track.

Naturally we have many options such as a new whole new rig or just upgrading the video card. If your mobo can handle it... and by which i mean your case has the room and your PSU can deal with it there are deals on the 460 fermi video card out there that are smoking. Galaxy has good offerings for $200 ... Evga and others are offering 460s for 170-180 if you look online.

It's an FFXIV Priority Booster someone over at FFXIVCore wrote. I've noticed some improvement with it in the way of framerates but it almost seemed to bog down my connection. I can't be certain about that as the server as more populated during the hours I was testing this as well. But it's worth a shot if the game runs poorly. Personally I was seeing on average maybe a 4-5 FPS improvement in some areas, as far as 6FPS when in close proximity to the camps. The "mouse smoothing" feature didn't really seem to do anything for me however so just don't expect a dramatic improvement. In short all it does it sets the game priority to something better than low. FFXIV's problem for the most part is it sets itself to the lowest priority causing the game to run poorly.

Yeah. I'm getting similar results as OP with an overclocked nvidia quadro nvs 140m, which is roughly the same as the 8600. I only score about 270 on the benchmark. But the game is actually playable on low settings if you have a bit of patience. I'm using 2/3 buffer and standard texture quality and the game lags a bit but i can at least play it.

Put the game in Full screen mode in the config. Go the ffXIVgame.exe in the c:Program Files\Square Enix folder Right-click and pick Properties - > Compatibility -> check RUN in 640x480 Runs a bit smoother and doesnt look that bad.